Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 246A: 246A: After Clause 238, insert the following new Clause— ““Secretary of State to report on local government targets and plans (1) The Secretary of State must prepare an annual report on progress during the previous 12 months to reduce the administrative burden for local government of compliance with duties under Part 5 of this Act and section 4 of the Local Government Act 2000 (c. 22) (strategies for promoting well-being) and any other duties of a similar nature that require local authorities to have regard to guidance, provide information to the Secretary of State or to a body acting on the Secretary of State’s behalf or obtain the approval of a Secretary of State in relation to the discharge of a function of the authority. (2) The Secretary of State must annually lay before each House of Parliament the report he prepares under this section, the first report being laid before the Houses of Parliament on the anniversary of the commencement of this section.”” The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 246A seeks to insert a new clause in order to support deregulation, and to add parliamentary accountability. It requires the Secretary of State to report on local government targets and plans, and to prepare an annual plan to report that to Parliament in order to reduce the administrative burden. All sides of your Lordships’ House have, in the past, supported the reduction in the centrally imposed burden of regulation. We all feel strongly that such a burden of control on local government has held back an improvement in public services, and denied the ability of local people to make local decisions or to assess local needs and circumstances. It has, therefore, denied local choice. At the same time, it has wasted public money. Again, I think that all sides of the House have talked of the United Kingdom being quite unique in that centrally imposed system. Therefore, last summer, in its document People and Places, the Local Government Association proposed a reduction in those controls. We had constructive meetings with the department for local government and the Treasury, and were very pleased that the White Paper, when it came out in October, sought to reduce the current 1,000 performance indicators and targets imposed on local authorities down to 200, with some 35 national outcomes. Yet it is not just those; there are the plans that must be submitted, the financial bid system, the guidance that comes down, and the whole burden of control. I was a little confused to read—since that document had come out in October—the front-page headline in the Guardian last week about a dramatic reduction in central control, and of moving on from the Blair years. I wonder how that reduction announced in October to 200 targets has been reduced further, or are we still where we were in October? Was this a reannouncement of an old announcement already made in a White Paper in the autumn? Nevertheless, the noble Baroness in the past has supported strongly a deregulatory agenda and parliamentary accountability. This amendment seeks to do that and we hope to have the support of the noble Baroness. I beg to move.